1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for electron beam lithography, and more particularly, to a system and a method for electron beam lithography having an improved patterning accuracy.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electron beam lithography system is used to form a semiconductor integrated circuit pattern on a resist applied on a mask or a semiconductor wafer. The electron beam lithography system irradiates an electron beam to a predetermined region in the mask or the semiconductor wafer by deflecting and scanning the beam by an electromagnetic means.
The electron beam lithography system draws a predetermined pattern on a resist applied on the mask or the like as follows. The mask or the like is mounted on an X-Y stage and an electron beam is irradiated in a predetermined region on a shot-by-shot basis while the X-Y stage is moved. The electron beam lithography system requires a high accuracy. When, therefore, the electron beam is irradiated in shot regions of different shapes, the shot shapes are corrected from the resulting patterns for more accurate irradiation. This technique is disclosed, for example, in WANG Zhigang et al., “Recent CD accuracy improvements for HL-7000M,” Proceedings of SPIE, VOL. 5446, pp 657-668, 2004.